This invention relates to a thermal reactor for treating exhaust gas from an engine of a motor vehicle.
In conventional thermal reactors, it is necessary to arrange a shell and a core received therein such that they are permitted to deform relatively to each other due to thermal expansion thereby preventing their damages and that the core is supported in the shell to prevent generations of excessive vibrations and noises.
In order to solve the above technical problems, we have made various utility tests on the thermal reactor in which an inlet pipe attached to the shell is inserted into said core so as to slide relative thereto and an outlet pipe attached to the core is slidably supported in an outlet opening in the shell, in which the core designed as described above is located. As a result, it has been experienced that abnormal wear and unpleasant noises are generated at sliding portions between the shell and the core and between the outlet pipe and the shell because of vibrations of the engine and vibrations generated upon running of the vehicle, since said core is floatingly suspended within the shell. That is to say, the core, the shell, the inlet pipe, and the outlet pipe have no fixed portion which is a base point upon relative movements therebetween due to the thermal expansion. Therefore, the core is retained in floating condition within the shell to produce play on the sliding portion of each member by vibrations generated during running of the vehicle and operation of the engine, thereby causing vibrations and abnormal noises and further increasing wear at each sliding portion. Also, it has been experienced that the exhaust gas enters directly into a space between the core and the shell and then is discharged to the atmosphere without reburning of the exhaust gas within the core, because after a long period of use, play is produced at the sliding portions between the inlet pipe and an inlet portion of the core and between the outlet pipe and an outlet portion of the shell.
This invention is to provide an improved thermal reactor in which the above drawbacks in the invention of our aforementioned application are avoided.